Descent into destruction

Black History Month | What’s holding up black progress in America? Journalist and author Juan Williams points to black leaders and icons who turn away from black family values | Marvin Olasky

Juan Williams, author of Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America—and What We Can Do About It (Crown, 2006), is a senior NPR correspondent and a FOX news analyst. He worked at The Washington Post for 21 years and saw firsthand what he criticizes in his new book's subtitle.

WORLD: You praise Bill Cosby for drawing attention to the crisis among blacks. How did he do that and why?

WILLIAMS: Cosby deserves great praise for using his celebrity to advance a critical but difficult public debate over the breakdown of family life, a dysfunctional culture, and acceptance of crime in America and especially among poor black people. Speaking at a 2004 NAACP gala to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Cosby dared to say out loud what most Americans and most black Americans have been saying privately. He said too many poor people are not taking advantage of opportunities to help themselves. He reminded the audience of the tremendous sacrifices made by civil-rights heroes from Thurgood Marshall, the lead lawyer in the Brown case, to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.